The new fundraising numbers are out and things are looking very good for the Romney/Ryan team. At this point in the race, Obama has $124 million available, while Romney/Ryan have $186 million.

That means that Obama/Biden have only two-thirds of the cash Romney/Ryan have. And there is still three months left to go.

The huge cash advantage by the Romney team comes from huge fundraising hauls over the last couple of months. Also, the Romney campaign has been very careful in its campaign expenditures, saving most of its heavy spending for the fall.

Meanwhile, Team Obama has been struggling to meet fundraising goals and spending heavily on its ground organization. Obama’s fundraising team has stated that they don’t expect to raise as much money for the 2012 campaign as they did for the 2008 campaign. Up till now, Democrats have taken for granted Obama’s fundraising superiority. This has to be a humbling experience for the previously undisputed king of fundraising.

For the first time in history, an incumbent president could be out-raised by his challenger. And we can be sure that Romney will stretch every dollar of that money he has raised to full advantage in the fall.

Let’s keep this train rolling! There is still a lot of ground to make up on Obama’s established organization. Click here to donate to Romney/Ryan! Just $15 or $25 can make a difference.

Try to imagine you are Obama or Biden right now. They all but admitted they never saw it coming. ‘It’ being the Paul Ryan veep choice. And now they are scrambling on defense again to figure out what to do.

In a war, one of the most critical and important elements of strategy is to keep your enemy off balance; to keep him guessing all the time. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are brilliant strategists and fighters and they are going to win. One key factor in the Obama/Biden arsenal is their predisposition to lie. They have no compunction to lying; that makes them dangerous when cornered. But we have confidence in the voters to see through the fog of falsehood. Truth always triumphs over falsehood.

Two days ago I gave a list of several clues that give me the confidence to optimistically state Romney/Ryan will be elected on November 6th. One of those clues is the difference in crowd size at each Obama or Romney campaign stop. The Romney/Ryan crowds are huge and growing and much larger than the Obama/Biden crowds.

Yesterday, the Washington Examiner published an email message from within the Obama campaign HQ in Chicago. You will recall that crowd estimates of the North Carolina event were estimated at 10,000+. This message below pegged it 5,000 higher:

Paul –

I just got this disturbing report: Yesterday’s Romney-Ryan rally in North Carolina pulled in an overflow crowd of 15,000 people.

There’s no spinning that number. It’s a LOT of people, and the Republican base in energized.

And that’s not all. Since the VP announcement, Romney’s campaign has brought in over 70,000 donations from his Tea Party base.

We’ve got to step up our game and mobilize our supporters — starting right now.

Donate $3 or right now to help us rally our base around President Obama’s agenda >>

Listen to what one Republican supporter said about Paul Ryan: “I love him…He’s going to excite the Tea Party and get them on board…”

We can’t let the Republicans claim the momentum. Donate $3 or whatever you can:

http://dccc.org/Stand-With-President-Obama

Thanks,

Brynne

Brynne Craig

DCCC Field Director

I was trying to imagine some of the water cooler discussions there in Chicago. One that came to mind was this: “Man, what are we going to do about North Carolina! That is our national convention state. Romney is eating our lunch there! What the heck are we going to do?!!”

This article is a great example of the many articles describing panic and desperation wafting from the Axelrod tent ——-> SHAPIRO …I love it!

American Values: “In God We Trust” — “Liberty” — “E Pluribus Unum”

Twitter Follow: @VicLundquist– Dedicated to all members of The United States military and their families

Harry Reid’s fabrication is nothing more than a simple ploy to change the subject by accusation. It is no different than the horribly deplorable question posed to any man: “How many times did you beat your wife last year?” There is no positive way to answer it. Such a question posits an accusation while it also deflects attention from the persons (or party) posing the question (or from the critical subjects of jobs, the economy, debt). No matter how a man answers this question, he is judged guilty by the less studied (i.e., the TV voter) by their accepting the accusation on its face. Even Harry Reid’s style of gutter politics did not allow him to ask that question because even the TV voter would never believe the accusation. Mitt Romney’s reputation is above reproach and the only way to dispose the puny accuser is to ignore him, which is what Governor Romney has done.

I repeat what I have said in several previous posts. Consider the sources: Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. Need I say more? Unfortunately, I’m afraid these three have yet to reach the lowest levels to which they are willing to stoop.

This video clip is excellent at revealing Reid and Pelosi for who they are: Deplorable politicians. BTW, at the end of the clip Priebus discusses possible additional speakers at the convention:

We who believe in OPPORTUNITY, the American Dream, and Governor Mitt Romney helped our next President raise a hefty amount of money in July to strengthen his campaign war chest…

$101.3 MILLION.

It’s the second month in a row Romney has raked in more than $100 million and the third month in a row Romney’s joint committee has raked in more cash than Obama’s joint committee. (Obama’s joint fundraising resulted in $75 million for July.)

No candidate for president has ever had two $100 million months in a single election.

Today, Romney for President, Romney Victory, and the Republican National Committee announced fundraising totals of over $101.3 million in July. The campaign, RNC and state party participants have approximately $185.9 million cash on hand.

Announcing the numbers, Romney Victory National Finance Chairman Spencer Zwick and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said, “Once again we see that for many people, this is more than a campaign, it is a cause.” Zwick went on to say, “We are honored to have the support of a broad spectrum of donors—Independents, Democrats and Republicans—whose support of Governor Romney shows that he has the needed plan to jumpstart our economy and get the country on the right track again. We are well on track to raise the money to be successful in November. If you haven’t given, show your support by joining the group of donors who have shown their commitment to Governor Romney and the Romney Victory effort.”

“Americans are clearly looking for a change in the White House,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. “While President Obama claims that his economic plan ‘worked,’ the American people know that his policies haven’t worked and he has failed to fix our economy. Mitt Romney has a plan that will create jobs, grow the economy, and build a stronger middle class – that is why he is seeing such strong support.”

● Over $101.3 Million raised in July
● 94.13% of all donations received in July were $250 or less
● $25.7 million raised by donations under $250 in July
● 600,627 donations received under $250 in July
● Approximately $185.9 million cash on hand
● Contributions received from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

It’s also reassuring to know Governor Romney is a wise steward with funds raised (note Ben’s article). Thank you very much to all who helped make July such a significant fundraising month.

As RNC chairman Priebus stated – this is more than a campaign – it is a cause. Let’s continue to manifest our belief in The Gov and the restoration of America by making August another great month (91 days until election day!). Donate here.

President Obama has spent more campaign cash more quickly than any incumbent in recent history . . .

The price tag: about $400 million from the beginning of last year to June 30 this year, according to a New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission records, including $86 million on advertising.

With less than a month to go before the national party conventions begin, the president’s once commanding cash advantage has evaporated, leaving Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee with about $25 million more cash on hand than the Democrats as of the beginning of July.

And with August a traditionally slow month for fund-raising, Mr. Obama has bombarded his supporters in recent weeks with increasingly urgent pleas for money, mindful that he will need to drastically raise his cash intake in the coming months merely to equal his record-breaking haul from 2008.

“My upcoming birthday next week could be the last one I celebrate as president of the United States, but that’s not up to me — it’s up to you,” Mr. Obama wrote last week as the campaign’s latest fund-raising deadline and his Aug. 4 birthday approached. “This July deadline is our most urgent yet, coming after two consecutive months of being significantly outraised by Romney and the Republicans.”
Mr. Obama’s heavy expenditures — and his campaign’s pressure on bundlers to find and groom new donors — have stirred worries among other Democrats, who have long taken Mr. Obama’s financial supremacy for granted.

There are a couple of key take-home messages from this article.

1. Obama is setting records for spending so much money so quickly.

2. Obama will be the first sitting president in history to be out-raised by his rival.

3. Obama will unlikely match his fundraising numbers from his 2008 campaign.

Wednesday I spent 12 hours driving home from a family vacation. Rather than listen to my XM stations of choice, PATRIOT or POTUS, I decided to spend a few hours listening to LEFT. If a person had landed on Earth from another planet and only heard the rhetoric from that one radio station, she would have concluded: a) Mr. Obama is the best president of all time, b) Gov. Romney is a buffoon, c) Gov. Romney wants to buy the election [fact: Obama has far out raised Romney to date and has spent far more than Romney], d) Mr. Obama is starting to leave Romney in the dust, and e) America is enjoying amazing economic health — to name just the big ones. Fantasies and self-deceit all.

Let’s get back to reality, shall we? Karl Rove has a very simple way of setting us straight. His column this week titled, “The Obama Ad Blitz Isn’t Working” is very good.

Ya gotta love how Mr. Rove starts off his column. These four little words will be the death of the Obama campaign!

Despite President Obama’s effort to walk back these remarks, the damage they’ve caused to him remains. And that’s because what he said in Roanoke, Va., on July 13 came across as a true expression of his worldview.
[...]“You didn’t build that” is not Mr. Obama’s only recent problematic statement. In a June 8 news conference, he said “The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government.” And in Oakland, Calif., on July 24, he told donors that on the economy, “We tried our plan and it worked!” These comments make voters wince.

Every candidate stumbles verbally, but in 2008 Mr. Obama did so less frequently than most. He was disciplined, on message, and gave his opponent few openings. So what is different this time?

One factor may be overscheduling. Mr. Obama has attended an extraordinary 195 fundraisers in the 16 months since he filed for re-election on April 4, 2011 (according to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller). Many people don’t fully appreciate how much of a drain it is on a candidate—involving travel, a speech or two, private meetings with particularly energetic (or obnoxious) money bundlers, and always plenty of advice. Most fundraisers also include a long photo line where the candidate grips and grins for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of photographs.
[...]
. . . it is astonishing how much time Mr. Obama has spent scrabbling for cash.

That’s not all. You need to add to the fundraising calendar an early and very active campaign schedule as well. Remember last August’s three-day bus trip through the Midwest? And then there are the demands of Mr. Obama’s day job.

In short, the president may be nearly exhausted. If he is, the normal inner discipline that protects a candidate from saying too much, being too blunt, or sharing too openly may be weakening.

Despite the scramble for money, Mr. Obama’s campaign fundraising take is behind its 2008 pace, and its overhead is enormous (according to monthly FEC filings by his campaign and the Democratic National Committee). His cash advantage over Mr. Romney was probably gone as of July 31, in large measure because (according to public records at TV stations) Team Obama has spent at least $131 million on television the last three months.

These ads have not moved him up in the polls. The race is tied in the July 30 Gallup poll at 46%. Neither have the ads strengthened public approval of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy, which is stuck at 44% in the July 22 NBC/WSJ poll, nor have they erased Mr. Romney’s seven-point lead in that poll regarding who has “good ideas for how to improve the economy.”

Roughly $111 million of Mr. Obama’s ad blitz was paid for by his campaign; outside groups chipped in just over $20 million. The Romney campaign spent only $42 million over the same period in response, with $107.4 million more in ads attacking Mr. Obama’s policies or boosting Mr. Romney coming from outside groups (with Crossroads GPS, a group I helped found, providing over half).

Mr. Obama’s strategists know they won in 2008 in large part by outspending their opponents in the primaries and general election. They’ve tried that with Mr. Romney the last three months, and so far it isn’t working. Still, just this week, according to public records, Team Obama has bought an additional $32 million in ads in nine battleground states for August.

Unanswered television ads do move poll numbers, as was the case in 2008. But these Obama ads won’t go unanswered.

The response by the Romney campaign and Romney supporters will be amplified by the reality of a painfully weak economy, growing debt and unpopular ObamaCare. More fundraisers will not solve that problem, but they will create opportunities for a weary candidate to make more revealing and damaging statements.

[emphasis added]

Mr. President: Wait until Governor Romney begins to get serious with truthletting using only your words from the dozens of commitments you made to all Americans regarding the economy and jobs. Watch the needle then.

American Values: “In God We Trust” — “Liberty” — “E Pluribus Unum”

Twitter Follow: @VicLundquist– Dedicated to all members of The United States military and their families

Four days ago, The Wall Street Journal published an outstanding article by Stephen Moore titled, The Man Who Saved Capitalism. One of the reasons President Reagan’s economic policies were so successful was because he relied upon the advice and wisdom of Milton Friedman. The entire article is worth reading. I am convinced liberals will never understand the genius of Friedman. If you ever want to have some fun, look up the numerous YouTubes of Friedman eviscerating the brightest of liberals. Here are some excerpts of Moore’s excellent article (also, see a great video at the WSJ URL):

It’s a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It’s perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world’s greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.

Friedman was a constant presence on these pages until his death in 2006 at age 94. If he could, he would surely be skewering today’s $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.

In the 1960s, Friedman famously explained that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from (more…)

The Romney campaign just announced having raised with the RNC, $106.1 million for the month of June. Having outraised the Obama campaign in May by $17 million, it will be interesting to see how the Obama campaign does in June. According to the Romney campaign, most of the monies raised came from new donors with states coast to coast out-performing their targets. A clear message that there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, and that Mitt Romney is trusted to turn around the economy.

Key facts:
$106.1 million raised
94% of all donations received in June were under $250
$22.3 million raised in June by donations under $250
536,729 donations received were under $250
$160 million cash on hand

Obama’s campaign is conspicuous by their absence!

UPDATE BY LUKE: Reports say that the Obama campaign has raised $71 million in June, $35 million below Mitt Romney’s stellar performance. Ouch. AND, HOW MUCH ON HAND?

Early yesterday I heard on the radio that Mr. Obama was begging people to donate to his campaign in a rambling conference call initiated by him on Air Force One. The person reporting on it said those attending the call said he sounded “weary” and “desperate.”

Every incumbent president has an enormous advantage over any challenger for all the obvious reasons; it is why no incumbent president has ever raised less campaign cash than his challenger. Never. And remember, presidential fundraising is a form of voting.

In a phone call from Air Force One, the President reportedly told a group of top donors “I can’t do this by myself” and urged them to open their cheque books to “meet or exceed what you did in 2008″.

Noting that most had “maxed out to my campaign last time,” Mr Obama told them: “I really need you to do the same this time,” according to a leaked transcript.

Despite holding a narrow lead over his rival, the president informed the supporters that his ability to campaign and broadcast advertisements in key battleground states such as Florida and Ohio directly depended on their generosity.

Details of the call emerged days after Mr Obama warned supporters that he would be “the first president in modern history to be outspent” by his opponent unless donors upped their contributions.

Following is the most interesting quote I heard on the radio this morning. Why is it that when we hear or read almost anything in which Obama is being quoted, he refers to himself? From patting himself on the back for ordering the raid on Bin Laden to his poor circumstances as noted here? Is this one a case of whining again or basic narcissism?

“In 2008 everything was new and exciting about our campaign,” Mr Obama said, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Daily Beast, a news website. “And now I’m the incumbent president. I’ve got grey hair. People have seen disappointment because folks had a vision of change happening immediately. And it turns out change is hard.”

Change is hard for the person that has never been a leader or change agent. Mr. Obama is just now discovering, after 44 months, that change is difficult? This quote just above is nothing short of pathetic. Whining — Pathetic — Self-centered. Oh, the poor man; he has grey hair.

Sheldon Adelson, a casino tycoon who last month gave Restore Our Future $10 million (£6.4 million), has pledged to spend “whatever it takes” to kill Mr Obama’s “socialist agenda”, friends have said.

As I heard about Mr. Obama’s begging for money on Air Force One, I started doing some basic calculations to try and guess how much each $1,000 of money raised cost the taxpayers in AF1 fuel, salaries and benefits of Air Force and Secret Service personnel, etc. I wish there was some way we could vote Mr. Obama out of office much sooner than November 6th. I can only dream.

In the meantime, we must all work as hard as we can to bring about a huge result that first week of November! Every person’s effort in grassroots work will have a cumulative impact that will be enormous. Never forget that. Every little bit helps. Just do it. Never quit — never.

Contrast Mr. Obama’s pathetic quote above with the fact that Mitt Romney has been a change agent and a strong leader for well over 35 years. Do you think Mitt Romney has ever complained about change being difficult? Need I say more?

(BTW – we will be embedding a lot of tweets up until election. The nice thing about embedded tweets is they support full interaction. If you are already logged into twitter you can follow the tweeter, or you reply, retweet, or ‘favorite’ a tweet right here from our website. It’s easy – give it a try. If you aren’t already following Andrea Saul give her a follow. If you are already following her, give her a retweet.)